No. of Recommendations: 7
If you put it up to a vote, who would the Palestinians vote for? I suspect you know the answer already.
If we put what up for a vote? In what context? And when?
Right now, if there were a secret ballot between actual political alternatives without fear of reprisals, for governance of Gaza as it was before the war (not a country, subject to a crippling embargo, and insanely poor), Hamas would get trounced in a vote. The Palestinian folks have suffered horrifically. If all they get out of it is a return to the status quo ante but with their land in ruins, they'd run Hamas out of town on a rail.
Except, of course, that Hamas has all the guns. So if you had a vote today for governance of Gaza, Hamas would win - because who would vote against them? Who would run against them? No one thinks that Hamas would accept the results of an election they lose, and they would kill anyone who runs against them and wins. So Hamas would be the only real candidates that anyone could feel safe voting for - even though they would lose by a landslide in an election without that fear.
However, if the outcome of the war were an actual Palestinian country? Then Hamas might indeed win an election - because they would be proven right, and would be the Founding Fathers of that new country. Violence was the way to independence, and their sacrifice would have birthed the new nation.
